Sunday

The value of internship opportunities

When considering any job opportunity, especially as a student, I always like to ask myself, “Can I make a valuable contribution to this company while also allowing them to contribute to my career success?” After working this summer at Charney & Associates, a nationally known executive recruitment firm, I can confidently say that I have improved their marketing efforts while also learning and being able to add to my professional and personal skill set.

During the interview process at Charney & Associates, I had the chance to speak with three members of the company including the President. This allowed me to learn about the company’s culture and exactly what was expected of me from different people. Nancy Charney, the President, and Eden Lengauer, the Office Manager, worked with me to make sure that my professional goals were being met while also making sure the goals of the firm were being achieved. This was first evident to me when I was given a title other than “Intern.” Nancy, knowing the importance of job titles on a resume and LinkedIn page, gave me the job title, “Social Media Strategist.”

This was fitting because the biggest project I worked on during my time at Charney & Associates was the social media strategy. Being HubSpot Inbound Marketing Certified, I know the importance of bringing relevant content to a target audience and being a part of the conversation on social media as opposed to being interruptive.

Shortly before my internship began, Charney & Associates was certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise by the Ohio River Valley Women's Business Council Certification Committee, a regional certifying partner of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). I worked with Eden and Nancy to brainstorm innovative ways to promote the certification to our current clients and potential clients.

One of my strongest beliefs regarding a successful social media strategy is that it must include the entire office. What we post on social media reflects who we are as a company, and I knew that if our recruiters and everyone in the office was not aware of our brand’s message, we could not achieve full success. Because of this, I was asked to present our marketing strategy during a companywide educational day. Not only did this allow me to relay our message to the entire office, but it also allowed me to participate in the presentations from Barry Niemann, past president of three large multi-office recruiting firms and current Chief Learning Officer at Charney & Associates, to learn more about the industry, best practices, and how it has changed.

As with most internships, this one had an end date and it was important for me to ensure that even after I was gone, the social media strategy that I had put into place would continue generating leads and brand awareness for Charney & Associates. I took a few steps to ensure that this would be the case. Firstly, I created a social media process handbook that laid out every step it took to create content for our social media strategy in full detail. This handbook, geared toward people, unlike myself, who do not have a background in digital marketing, includes things like how to use Hootsuite, Feedly, and Canva; how to use the built in analytics features on Facebook and LinkedIn to track the progress of a social media campaign; and how to use Google News Alerts to stay up to date with client company happenings, and more.

Finally, the best way to plan ahead is to simply get ahead. Before I left, I drafted a social media calendar with suggested posts for every day of the week, months in advance.

Many of my peers seek out internships at giant corporations, and while I see the pros in that, I cannot stress enough the benefits of starting out working in a small office. At Charney & Associates, I was able to sit in an open office setting amongst the recruiters. This opened my eyes to a new profession in ways that would never be possible if I was in a larger office with a marketing department. Every day, I was able to listen to the recruiters on the phone speaking to clients and candidates. I learned the dos and don’ts of interviewing and simply how to talk to people professionally, all from sitting at my computer day after day. Big corporations can give you classes and bring in weekly speakers, but there is something to be said about simply learning as you go in an environment that is not forced, but rather amazingly conducive for learning.

Every day is a little different. You never know when research for new candidates or a new project will come along, and learning flexibility is a valuable skill in today’s world. For instance, one day two bikers in full biker attire came strolling into the office. They must be lost, I thought. Before I knew it they were hugging Nancy. We shortly learned that the biker was Frank Faria, a hiring manager who Nancy had worked with for 23 years but never met in person. The recruiting industry is interesting in that way. They build very personal relationships with people whom they speak to on the phone every day, but most of the time they never meet in person due to geographic restrictions. Frank stayed for an hour sharing stories about all the years Nancy and he had worked together, and everyone in the office felt a sense of purpose. This man couldn’t have done his job or been as successful as he ended up being without the help of Charney & Associates.

Millennials need to know that their work has meaning, and there are few things more meaningful than giving companies the employees they need to rely on for success, and giving people jobs that they love waking up for every morning.

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